NP police kill protester in Genoa - eyewitness account

[Doug Millison]

Thanks, Dave.

from:
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/

"No action by this G8 summit, no matter how noble in rhetoric or intent,
will erase the fact that the economic policies promoted by the leaders of
the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and
Russia are now so unpopular that their gatherings must be "protected" with
deadly police violence.

"In Seattle in 1999, when tens of thousands of anti-globalization
demonstrators prevented the launch of a new round of World Trade
Organization negotiations, Global Trade Watch organizer Mike Dolan noted the
irony of WTO officials hailing free trade's benefits from behind legions of
armed riot troops. "If what the WTO is doing inside those closed meetings is
so great, how come they need all this muscle to protect them?" asked Dolan."

....I'm not sure the "NP" rubric is completely necessary for this thread.
Plenty of police attacking protesters in P's writing, for reasons not unlike
those -- the defense of political and economic power at the expense of the
powerless --  that appear to be at work in Genoa.  The Nation also has
coverage of reports that Italian police were seen escorting some violent
anarchist elements to the scenes of their violent provocations:

"Pam Foster, the coordinator of the Halifax Initiative in Canada, asked:
"Why did the police go after peaceful demonstrators but take their time
dealing with the anarchists?" The antics of the Black Bloc were the subject
of many passionate debates when the protesters streamed back to the
convergence center at Piazza Kennedy at dusk. Observing one of these
spontaneous arguments, Han Soeti of Indymedia-Belgium commented, "There are
reports that instead of arresting anarchists, the police were escorting some
of them to critical areas. I heard the same thing in Prague and Barcelona." 
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=bello20010721

...which brings to mind, mine at least, the snitch and agent provocateur
culture that Pynchon criticizes in Vineland.